A wide variety of games are played both in the field and on the court where a ball is kicked, thrown, bounced, paddled, and batted as part of game play. Such game balls must have a heavy-duty construction in order to withstand the extreme forces exerted on them.
Several designs have been proposed for illuminating game balls to enable play in dark conditions. One design, found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,066,011, utilizes a flash tube mounted inside a bounceable ball that flashes when the ball is bounced off a hard surface. Expensive, heavy-duty, electrical components must be used to survive the shock forces resulting from the ball repeatedly rebounding off the hard surface.
A lighted inflatable ball is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,776,589, which describes the mounting of a soft PVC membrane inside an inflatable shell. The membrane holds a battery cell, a switch, and wiring that passes from the battery cell through the soft membrane layer to an airtight fuse and then to a light bulb. Here, airtight construction must be used for inflatability.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,228,686, is directed to a lighted rubber ball having LED elements and rechargeable batteries mounted on the interior. The ball is formed from solid, high impact resistant rubber so as to bounce with a high velocity.
These and other designs utilize components and materials that, while generally suitable for their purposes, make the devices expensive to design and manufacture and render them undesirable for applications where such custom design and high manufacturing cost is not needed. Hence, there is a need for an illuminated game ball designed for relatively simple manufacture, assembly, and use in conjunction with a unique and novel method of game play that uses the ball passively, i.e., as a target to which other game objects are thrown in an attempt to land in as close proximity to the ball as possible.